Midlife

I think we are all flawed in some way or another. Maybe that is one of the most essential aspects of human existence. I also think that we are only really able to understand and make meaning of life through our own personal experiences. We are not necessarily completely self-absorbed (or at least we should strive not to be) but we really do see things one way, our own way. Perhaps occasionally we have are touched by a higher power that gives us a clarity we would not ordinarily have, but generally speaking, each one of us lives in his or her own me-centric universe. I have often wondered if others experience things the same way I do. Is blue for another person the same as blue to me. Are the shades all the same? Does a rose smell the same to everyone. Theoretically our sensory perceptions are all similar so all the things that we experience with our senses should be similar, but are they identical? I wonder if senses are like languages, where there are words that generally convey similar concepts across the linguistic spectrum. I have found that some things translate directly, like objects. Ideas however often do not translate directly. Perhaps that is the way it is with everything. Maybe our own individual ways of participating in the life experience are somewhat unique, and therefore do not translate precisely to others.

I start all this out because the more I experience, the more I develop, the more I realize how flawed I am as an individual.

My mom died when I was 11 years old. I think I was pretty close to my mom and it was pretty difficult for me. I have sort of built a mental barrier between the life I had before she moved on, and the life I now live. I can move beyond the barrier, but the images on the other side are not usually very clear. They are hazy, out of focus. With effort I could perhaps find clarity in the memories, but I think there is an at least subconscious, if not overtly conscious fear of the pain that could come with renewing that loss.

I mention all this because I think I definitely changed a lot when my mom died. It is as if I decided to be a man. I am not saying that I grew up immediately, but I think that in some ways I made a transition that should take years in a matter of days.

I married relatively young and was blessed with a wonderful family almost immediately. I think a part of me, was definitely not ready for all that.

My mom was 34 when she died. I am 29.

These two ideas I think sometimes combine in my mind to make me feel like a failure. Sometimes I look at my life and see nothing but failures.

We like to make lists. We like to map our lives and set goals and watermarks and we like to compare those lists to those around us. We like to wear our individual accomplishments like badges.

If I were to look at the list of things that a younger Joe would have made, some of the things would be checked off. Mission: check. Temple marriage: check. Family: check. There are a lot of things checked off. There are a lot that are not though, and for some reason it seems those are the ones we focus on. Graduate from college: blank. Become a spiritual giant: blank. Become a famous writer and change the world: blank.

A lot of the things that I have failed to check are probably unrealistic. They are highly idealized and romanticized.

What I occasionally realize in moments of unusual clarity is the importance of the things that have been checked.

Mission: two years in Siberia, serving a people I truly came to love, a people I still love. I miss the hard cold drab streets of Novosibirsk. I miss the hills and trees of Tomsk and Krasnoyarsk. I even miss Omsk, a city that truly hated us. I grew so much and had so many opportunities. I got to serve. I grew so much spiritually. I really developed into the person I am now there. One of the people I most look up to is Dostoevsky. After a sentence of death for conspiracy against the emperor was commuted, he spent five years in Siberia, in Omsk. It is interesting that the place where I probably grew the most in all my life is the place where he endured hard labor for five years.

Siberia is where they sent the dissenters, the troublemakers. Akademgorodok, outside of Novosibirsk, was probably the scientific center of the Soviet Union. Many great minds were shaped in the shadow of the taiga, sheltered from the blasting wind and punishing ice of long Siberian winters. That is where I grew up.

In the Army I have had opportunities I would have never imagined. I have been to Afghanistan twice. I have been to Germany once. I have seen and done things I would have never imagined. Many of them nobody but very few people will ever know about. I could have never imagined the things I have accomplished. Never.

My family, it has a big check with a circle around the whole thing, and is underlined three times, is wonderful. I have a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful wife who supports me and is incredibly patient. I have four beautiful children.

I suppose the deal with all this is it seems we tend to downplay the value of the things we have checked off of our list, and stress about the things that are not checked.

The success of our lives will not be determined by what boxes we have checked. It will be determined by who we are, what we have become. Really, the things we have done are only significant in that they shape and mold us. All that is good comes from God so what credit do we really get for the good things we do anyway? Our failures however are our own. I guess that might be where grace comes in. The good in us is Gods. The bad in us is our own. He uses His goodness to elevate us. His goodness is greater than our badness.

There are so many things that I have accomplished, that I have had the opportunity to do, by the grace of God, that were never on any list.

Enough.

We should allow our righteous aspirations, the ones that have not been checked, to serve as motivation to grow. We should seek to check them off. We also must never let our accomplishments define us. The Dead Sea is huge. It is one of the largest lakes in the world. It is dead though. It is stagnant. There is more life in a small pond where the water is fresh and moving, than in the whole of the dead sea. Life is motion.

Keep moving.